Mining machine having oscillated rotary drum in advance of spaced boring heads



July 25, 1967 J. GONSKI ,3

MINING MACHINE HAVING OSCILLATED RQTARY DRUM IN ADVANCE OF SPACED BORING HEADS Filed July 22, 1965 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 INVENTOR. JosaPH Gousiq 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 J. GONSKI INVENTOR TosEPH 6 ON s| BY MINING MACHINE HAVING OSCILLATED ROTARY DRUM IN ADVANCE OF SPACED BORING HEADS Filed July 22, 9

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United States Patent 3,332,722 MINING MACHINE HAVING OSCILLATED R0- TARY DRUM IN ADVANCE OF SPACED BOR- ING HEADS Joseph Gonski, Chicago, Ill., assiguor to Goodman Manufacturing Company, Chicago, 11]., a corporation of Filed July 22, 1965, Ser. No. 473,945 Claims. (Cl. 299-57) of the boring type, so arranged as to minimize the cusps usually left between the boring heads of the machine to the extent that the necessity of trimming the cusps is obviated by ripping the mine face at the center of the machine with a vertical swath, and by widening the vertical swath to full face width by rotary boring heads following the ripper mining operation.

Another object of the invention is to improve upon the mining mechanisms of boring types of continuous mining machines, adapting the machine for more efficiently mining low wide seams of coal, by providing a vertically oscillatable ripper type of mining head at the center of the machine, mining a vertical swath between the roof and floor of the mine and by providing trailing boring heads at opposite sides of the machine, boring in paths substantially forming continuations of the upper and lower extremities of the vertical swath.

A still further object of the invention is to provide a new and improved form of continuous mining machine of the boring type having a ripper head rotating in a direction to progress the cuttings to the conveyor of the machine, and angularly moved to cut a vertical swath at the center of the seam between the roof and floor of the mine and by providing a pair of rotary boring heads behind the ripper cutter to complete the mining operation to the full width of the face, and rotating to pro gress the cuttings toward the center of the machine.

These and other objects of the invention will appear from time to time as the following specification proceeds and with reference to the accompanying drawings where- FIGURE 1 is a front end view of a continuous mining machine constructed in accordance with the principles of the present invention;

FIGURE 2 is a transverse sectional view of the machine taken substantially along line 2-2 of FIGURE 1; and

FIGURE 3 is a fragmentary plan view of the ripper head and its support at the front end of the machine.

' In the embodiment of the invention illustrated in the drawings, I have shown the front end portion of a continuous mining machine of the boring type having a main frame fragmentarily shown and supported on laterally spaced continuous traction devices 11, which serve to tram the machine from working place to working place and to feed the machine into the working face of a mine,

' to effect a mining operation in a conventional manner.

A cutter frame structure 12 is supported on and extends ahead of the main frame 10 across the forward end manner, which is no part of the present invention soneed not herein be shown or described further. v

The cutter frame structure 12 forms a support for a 3,332,722 Patented July 25, 1967 ice pair of widely spaced rotary boring heads 13 projecting in advance of the front face thereof, and a housing for drive gearing (not shown) for driving said rotary boring heads in timed relation with respect to each other to rotate during boring, in directions to progress cuttings toward the center of the machine along pusher plates 14, 14, backing up said mining heads to be picked up by a conveyor 15. The conveyor 15 may be a well known form of laterally flexible conveyor and extends along the machine from in advance of the forward end thereof, beyond the rear end thereof for loading the mined material onto shuttle cars or other material-transporting means.

The cutter frame 12 also has a central forwardly facing recessed portion 16 having spaced facing parallel side walls 17, 17, forming support for forwardly projecting boom arms 18, 18 on transverse pivot pins 19, 19. The boom arms 18, 18 form supports for coaxial ripper cutter heads 21, 21 disposed in advance of the boring heads 13, 13. The ripper cutter heads rotate about a horizontal transverse axis to mine a vertical swath in the mine face from the roof to the floor of the mine, lapped by the cutting patterns of the boring heads 13, 13, widening the swath to full room width, as will hereinafter be more clearly described as this specification proceeds.

The boring heads 13, 13 may be of various conventional forms and as herein shown, each boring head has a central hub 22 rotatably journalle d in the cutter frame 12 in a suitable manner and driven from conventional.

'head, by a conventional form of adjusting mechanism,

which is no part of the present invention, so need not herein be shown or described.

Each boring head 13 also has a central annular cutter 25 projecting forwardly of the boring arm 23, coaxial with the axis of rotation thereof, and having cutter bits 26 mounted thereon and projecting forwardly therefrom, for cutting an annular kerf adjacent the center of the seam.

The telescopic arms 24 have cutter supports 27 projecting forwardly therefrom, and of an accurate form in front view, generally conforming to the arc of travel of the cutter support and having the usual cutter bits 29, 29 projecting therefrom and pitched to cut clearance for said cutter supports. Each cutter support 27 also has a plow 30 extending angularly inwardly toward the center of the boring head, and pitched to progress the mined material toward the center of the machine, to be picked up by the conveyor 15.

The coaxial ripper cutter heads 21, 21 are each mounted on a separate boom arm 18 for rotation along opposite sides thereof and include a drum section 31 on each side of an associated boom arm 18, and rotatably journalled on said boom arm for rotation about axes extending transversely of the machine and parallel to the axes of vertical angular movement of the boom arms. The supports for the drum sections 31, 31 on the boom arms 18, 18 may be like those shown and described in the United States Patent No. 3,157,438 which issued to Richard C. Lundquist on November 17, 1964 and is no part of the present invention so needed not herein be shown or described in detail. The inner drum sections 31, 31 of the cutter drums 21, 21 are separated by a spacer 32, forming a thrust bearing between the adjacent drum sections 31, 31 and extending about a dead shaft 55, extending .along the drum sections, cooperating .with said spacer to hold the drum sections in aligned relation with respect to each other.

Each drum section 31 is shown as having a series of segmental circumferentially extending cutter supports 33, 33 spaced radially from the periphery thereof and welded .or otherwise secured thereto. The cutter supports are .spacedalong the width of each drum section 31, to position certain of said cutter supports along the opposite edges of the associated drum section and certain other of said cutter supports inwardly of the edges of the drum section (to cut clearance for the individual section as well as for the boom arm 18, supporting adjacent drum sections. The cutter supports 33, 33 have the usual cutter bits 35 projecting radially therefrom and inclinedto one side or the other of center, to cut clearance for said cutter supports and for the drum sections 31, to enable the ripper cutter heads 21 to dislodge the mined material from the mine face through the entire width of said cutter heads in a continuous operation.

The cutter bits 35, 35 are shown in FIGURE 2 as being pitched to cut as the cutter drums progress from the roof to the floor of the mine, as the drum sections rotate in clockwise directions, to progress the cuttings backwardly to the conveyor 15 during the mining of a vertical swath in front of the machine.

The two ripper cutter heads 21, 21, supported on the individual arms 18, 18, are individually driven from the hubs 22 of the associated boring heads 23-. As shown in FIGURE 1, the hub 22 of the right hand boring head has a drive gear 36 keyed or otherwise secured thereto. The opposite boring head has a similar gear (not shown) secured thereto. The drive gears secured to the hubs of the boring heads from drive gears for the boring heads and are independently driven from separate motors (not shown) in a conventional manner.

The gear 36 meshes with and drives a gear 37 keyed or otherwise secured to a drive shaft 39 extending longitudinally of the machine and suitably journalled in the cutter frame 12, and housed therein. A bevel gear drive connection 40 is provided between the shaft 39 and a perpendicular shaft 41 suitably journalled within the cutter frame 12. A bevel gear 42 on the inner end of said shaft meshes with and drives a bevel gear 43 on a longitudinally extending shaft 45, journalled in the cutterframe 12 on anti-friction bearings 46 and 47 on opposite sides of the axis of rotation of the shaft 43. The shaft 45 is inclined downwardly from the rear to the forward end portion of the cutter frame 12 and extends into the space between the side walls 17, 17 and has drive connection with a universal drive coupling 48. The universal drive coupling may be of any conventional form and has a transverse axis coaxial with the axis of the pivot pin 19, and drives a longitudinal shaft 49 extending along a slot 50 formed in the forward end portion of the boom arm 18 and within the extended margins of the cutter drums 31, 31 The shaft 49 is suitably journalled in the forward end portion of the boom arm 18 within the extended margins of the cutter drums 31, and has a bevel pinion 51 at its forward end, driving a bevel gear 53 and having driving connections with the two drum sections 21, 21 supported on the boom arm 18, in a manner similar to that shown and described in the aforementioned Lundquist Patent No. 3,157,438, and no part of the present invention so not herein shown or described further. The cutter drums 31, 31 on the opposite boom arm 18 are driven independently of the cutter drums on the first mentioned boom arm in a similar manner.

A hydraulic jack 56 is provided to simultaneously raise and lower the boom arms 18, 18 during the advance of 'the ripper heads and boring heads into the working face of a mine. As shown in FIGURES 2 and 3, the hydraulic jack 56 has an car 57 extending from the head end thereof b t s ll aced vqs cw b e s 59 9 e ten forwardly of a front wall '58 of the forwardly opening recessed portion 16 of the cutter frame. A pivot pin 60 serves to connect the car 57 between the connector brackets 59, 59. The hydraulic jack 56 also has an extensible piston rod 61 extending between connector brackets 62, 62, secured to and extending rearwardly of a cross brace in the form of a tube 63 connecting the boom arms 18, 18, together to form a unitary boom having boom arms projecting therefrom. Apivot pin 65 is provided to pivotally connect said piston rod between said connector brackets.

The hydraulic jack 56 may be alternately supplied with fluid under pressure to its head and piston rod ends under a suitable system of fluid pressure control valves (not shown) which may be operated at the upper and lower ends of travel of the boom arms, for cycling the boom arms 18 up and down to feed the ripper cutter heads 21, 21 upwardly and downwardly along a mine face during operation of the boring heads 13, 13, and feeding movement of said boring heads into the mine face by operation of the continuous traction tread devices 11, 11.

When the cutter drums 21, 21 are cycled to mine from the roof to the floor and floor to the roof of the mine in a continuous operation thecutter drums are driven at a higher rate of speed than the linear speed of travel of said cutter drums vertically along the mine face, to elfect a continuous mining of a vertical swath in the mine face during up and down feeding movement of the cutter drums.

In many instances it may only be desirable to mine as the ripper cutter heads 21, 21 are advanced from the roof to the floor of the mine. In such cases the boom arms 18, 18 are elevated by the hydraulic jack 56 to position the cutting tips of the cutter bits 35 along the roof of the mine. The entire machine is then advanced toward the face to sump the cutter drums 21, 21 into the working face of the mine to a desired depth.

The hydraulic jack 56 then serves to lower the ripper cutter heads 21, 21 while being rotatably driven to mine a vertical swat-h in the mine face at the center of the machine and ahead of the cutting paths of the outermost cutter bits 29 of the boring heads 13, 13, to be enlarged to full cutting width by rotation of said boring heads. In this method of mining the advance of the machine is intermittent and the boring heads do not come into contact with the mine face until a substantial swath has been mined by the ripper cutter heads 21, 21.

In either system of mining, however, a vertical swath is mined by the ripper cutter heads 21, 21 in advance 0f the boring heads 13, 13, which impel the cuttings to be loaded onto the conveyor 15 and the boring heads 13, 13, enlarge the swath to the full width of the mine face and may be spaced sufficiently far apart to provide a clear passage for the mined material to the conveyor 15,

It also is apparent from FIGURE 1, showing the cutting patterns of the boring heads and the ripper cutter drums, that all cusps left between the annular kerfs cut by the boring heads and the vertical swath ripped by the ripper cutter drums are minimal, with the result that the conventional trimmer chains for trimming the cusps from the roof and floor of the mine are unnecessary and the ripper cutter itself, in cooperation with the boring heads 13, 13, provides a clean floor and roof accommodating the continuous advance of the machine to mine and load from the working face of the mine.

It should also be understood that the cusps may be eliminated entirely by moving the boring heads 13, 13 closer together so the bores mined thereby form tangential continuations of the upper and lower margins of the vertical swath, or by lengthening the ripper cutter heads.

While I have herein shown and described one form in which the invention may be embodied, it may readily be understood that various variations and modifications in the invention may be attained without departing from the spirit and scope of the novel concepts thereof.

I claim: 1. In a continuous mining machine having a mobile frame, the improvement comprising:

a vertically oscillatable ripper cutter head rotatable about a horizontal transverse axis, adapted to mine a center swath in a mine face between the roof and the floor; and

a pair of laterally spaced boring heads, each mounted on said frame for rotation about a longitudinal axis and positioned rearwardly and outwardly from each end of the ripper cutter head, to widen the center swath to a full face width.

2. In a continuous mining machine having a mobile main frame, the improvement comprising:

an up and downward oscillatable ripper cutter head rotatable about a horizontal transverse axis, adapted to mine a vertical swath in a mine face;

a pair of widely-spaced boring heads, each rotatable about a longitudinal axis, positioned behind and in lapping relation to said ripper cutter head to enlarge the swath cut by said ripper cutter head to a full mine face, said boring heads being laterally spaced on opposite sides of said cutter head at least a distance sufiicient to bore generally tangentially of the upper and lower margins of the swath mined by said ripper cutter head.

3. In a continuous mining machine having a mobile main frame;

a conveyor extending along said main frame from a position adjacent the ground in advance of said main frame to a discharge position beyond the rear of said main frame;

a cutter frame mounted on said main frame and having a central throat extending over and along the front of said conveyor;

a pair of widely-spaced laterally aligned boring heads, each rotatable about a longitudinal axis, mounted on said cutter frame on opposite sides of said throat, each head adapted to mine an outer area defining curved side walls of a mine passage;

an elongated ripper cutter head rotatable about a horizontal transverse axis, mounted on said cutter frame in advance of and in overlapping relationship with respect to said boring heads for up and down feeding movement between the roof and the floor of a mine to mine a central vertical swath in the mine face overlapped by the bores mined by said boring heads.

4. In a continuous mining machine having a mobile main frame;

a conveyor extending along said main frame from a position adjacent the ground in advance of said main frame to a discharge position beyond the rear of said main frame;

5 a cutter frame mounted on said main frame and having a central throat extending along the front of said conveyor;

a pair of widely-spaced laterally aligned boring heads mounted on said cutter frame for rotation about axes extending longitudinally of the machine, on opposite sides of said throat and having cutter-bit-carrying cutter supports projecting forwardly therefrom, each of said boring heads adapted to mine an outer area defining the curved side walls of a mine passage; separate drive means to rotate each of said pairs of boring heads,

a boom transversely pivoted to said cutter frame including a pair of boom arms extending forwardly between said pair of spaced boring heads and extending in advance thereof;

a pair of cutter drums, supported for rotation about a horizontal transverse axis, on each of said boom arms, one being on each side of an associated boom arm and having cutter bit carrying cutter supports projecting radially outwardly therefrom;

means maintaining said cutter drums in aligned relation with respect to each other;

a separate drive means to rotate each pair of said cutter drums;

a power means for cyclically moving said boom and pairs of cutter drums between the roof and the floor of a mine during advance of the machine into the working face to mine a central vertical swath which together with the boring operation of said pair of boring heads substantially mines a full mine face.

5. The continuous mining machine of claim 4 further characterized in that the separate drive means provided to rotate each pair of said cutter drums comprises individual geared drive connections from said boring heads to associated pairs of cutter drums.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,862,700 12/1958 Gonski 29957 3,096,082 7/ 1963 Long 299-59 3,157,43 8 1 1/ 1964- Lundquist 299-64 X ERNEST R. PURSER, Primary Examiner. 

1. IN A CONTINUOUS MINING MACHINE HAVING A MOBILE FRAME, THE IMPROVEMENT COMPRISING: A VERTICALLY OSCILLATABLE RIPPER CUTTER HEAD ROTATABLE ABOUT A HORIZONTAL TRANSVERSE AXIS, ADAPTED TO MINE A CENTER SWATH IN A MINE FACE BETWEEN THE ROOF AND THE FLOOR; AND A PAIR OF LATERALLY SPACED BORING HEADS, EACH MOUNTED ON SAID FRAME FOR ROTATION ABOUT A LONGITUDINAL AXIS 